You’ve seen one episode, you’ve seen them all?

[WomanStanleyWoman]

Inspired by the ‘Vera’ thread - what are the shows you can see once, then theoretically never see again without missing anything?

My vote goes to Location Location Location. As much as I love it, the formula is eternally predictable:

‘Steve and Samantha Deluded-Twats are looking for a spacious two-bedroom apartment in west London. They love pricey Chiswick, but only have £300k to spend. They’re hoping that, with our help, they can find an area nearby with an attractive high street with a villagey feel and lots of independent shops and cafés, even though they buy everything off Amazon and get their lunch from Tesco Express like the rest of us. Today, I’ll be showing them a one-bed in need of work opposite a condemned council estate now being used as an unofficial skate park and drug den. I REALLY hope they can see the potential’.

Share your nominations…

@BreakfastOfWaffles

I still love it, but Death in Paradise is so comfortably formulaic.

Every single storyline is based on an Agatha Christie novel. DH and I like working out which particular one it is.

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Gordon turns up at perfectly pleasant but slightly sub par restaurant

Watches first service holding his chin whilst the "diners" (clearly people wheeled in the for the purpose of the programme) make a fuss and send everything back

Gord screams at the head chef calling him "big boy" and throws all his food in the bin. Closes the restaurant. Says the words fucking disgusting. Someone, usually the elderly owner, cries.

Gord then cooks his own dishes that don't look that different to the ones the original chef cooked earlier. All the staff try them and make amazed exaggerated yummy noises.

Restaurant reopens and "customers" (no doubt having had it drummed into them that this is the "after" shot) rave about how incredible the food is.

Yay Gordon has saved the day. The head chef G screamed at previously is now snivelling and telling Gordo how much he respects him.

Shot of Gordon stamping down the street laughing whilst ripping his chefs apron off. "Fuck me" he says. The end.

The news
NHS in a bad way
Education in a bad way
Worldwide pandemic
War somewhere in the world
Politician or world leader is being shady and /or hypocritical
A celebrity has died
The weather is shit
A football team has won a match/league/tournament

One born every minute- woman comes in screaming, husband faints/misses birth and baby born.

@Doubledeckers

Last of the Summer Wine (80s version)

• sat around chatting
• opportunity for mischief/fun/money making
• not everyone thinks it’s a good idea
• task goes wrong and there is a chase
• minor injury but nothing too serious
• all turns out in the end but not before Norah Batty has admonished Compo

You forgot "rolls hilariously down the hill in a bath". Or was that only the early series?

@Youdoyoutoday You obviously haven't paid attention to the lovely lieutenant Columbo as the opening scenes always show the murderer and murdered so we know exactly who did it but the fun is in watching Columbo figure out the exact how and why. There's usually one small thing that tips him off. It's a Sunday afternoon joy to behold. Especially when poorly and lazing on the sofa. I'll always have a place in my crime drama loving heart for Columbo.

Oh forgot to add to news...high street chain folds

Most of them are not worth the 2nd series.
Vera was OK for first 2 but eleven series where no-one smiles!!
Tooooo muchhhh.
Maybe Lewis and Hatherway the exception.

Oh, muscly torsos you say? Well, I suppose I could watch one series, just to, you know, check it out...

Taking one for the team, Barefoot?

Well done, that wumman!

Police camera action/police interceptors/traffic cops.

Driving along, some idiot suddenly drives off at speed, after a chase they drive into an estate and up onto the grass and leg it, police face difficult decision either to keep driving or pursue on foot. Police huff and puff and manage to corner idiot driver in a Wendy house in someone's back garden. Searching the car they find the world's tiniest amount of weed, then speak with stern hatchet faces to camera about how they kept the community safe for another day.

Alternatively, driving along, see someone wasted behaving like a dick/collapse, get out and deal with them. Speak with stern face to camera about idiots that get too drunk.

Parks and Recreation

Lesley is going OTT for a government project
Oh look Andy did something silly
April hates everyone
Ron hates everyone
We are all bullying Gerry again
Tom and Donna are living their best lives.

@JovialNickname

Ramsay's Kitchen Nightmares

Gordon turns up at perfectly pleasant but slightly sub par restaurant

Watches first service holding his chin whilst the "diners" (clearly people wheeled in the for the purpose of the programme) make a fuss and send everything back

Gord screams at the head chef calling him "big boy" and throws all his food in the bin. Closes the restaurant. Says the words fucking disgusting. Someone, usually the elderly owner, cries.

Gord then cooks his own dishes that don't look that different to the ones the original chef cooked earlier. All the staff try them and make amazed exaggerated yummy noises.

Restaurant reopens and "customers" (no doubt having had it drummed into them that this is the "after" shot) rave about how incredible the food is.

Yay Gordon has saved the day. The head chef G screamed at previously is now snivelling and telling Gordo how much he respects him.

Shot of Gordon stamping down the street laughing whilst ripping his chefs apron off. "Fuck me" he says. The end.

Then they go back 6 months later and the placed has closed, the staff are jobless and sleeping in doorways, and there is tumbleweed blowing across the recently renovated expensive kitchen and the dining area is full of cockroaches the size of volkswagens . . .

@HesterShaw1

Grand Designs. Couple design some state of the art residence full of sustainable energy technology on a hilariously unrealistic budget. Kevin delivers whispered warnings to camera just before ad break. Specially engineered glass from Germany fails to arrive and when it does it doesn't fit - just. Woman gets pregnant and thereby the race is on to get moved in by Christmas (FFS is Kevin actually impregnating these women?). A catastrophically awful winter ensues with waist deep floods on site, and in the latter series there's a countdown clock to when you, the viewer, know that Covid is about to strike and you're shouting at the telly "Hurry UP! Covid is coming!". They move in and make the inside beautiful, and Kevin delivers his closing homily about the transformative power and beauty of great architecure.

I love a bit of Grand Designs Bingo

But you've missed out the bit where the husband fulfils his desire to provide a home for his family and indulge his manly fantasies at the same time. He therefore happily smashes everything to pieces instead of doing the sensible thing and building the new bit, then moving into that while renovating the old bit.

He will be shown happily sitting on a digger in driving rain surrounded by uninhabitable buildings. The camera will then pan to his heavily-pregnant wife who is living in a freezing, leaking caravan with two under-fives and no doubt wondering what time the camera crew will go home so she can shove her husband's still-warm body into the foundations without evidence being recorded.

How more episodes don't end in divorce escapes me!

@Doubledeckers

Last of the Summer Wine (80s version)

• sat around chatting
• opportunity for mischief/fun/money making
• not everyone thinks it’s a good idea
• task goes wrong and there is a chase
• minor injury but nothing too serious
• all turns out in the end but not before Norah Batty has admonished Compo

Plus of course the inevitable hilarious race down a hill in an inappropriate vehicle (insert bathtub, wheelbarrow etc ad infinitum)

I can’t remember any tv show that ISN’T like that

You forgot the "couple run out of money before the build is finished, by some miracle find money, complete the build and say it was the hardest, but best thing they have ever done"

I’d also add, wife talks through gritted teeth at the end before couple promptly lost property on Rightmove for eleventy billion pounds.

Also, for the first time ever, truly belly laughing at Iglesias Piggle.

List. Not lost.

Most programmes follow the same formats.
Same music and production too
The escape to the country type ones are the worst though. They show them a huge place and they go ' it's too small ' grrr!
A lot are repeats as well

I love Criminal Minds, Vera and Death in Paradise - probably because they're so formulaic. It's like a lovely comfort blanket, watching wheel-eyed maniacs dismembering their mothers in a dusty shack in the woods/local tearaways getting blamed for minor crime but it leads to discovery of bigger crime lord/holiday makers sitting meekly while a pasty overdressed (yet adorable) Englishman exposes 30 years of dreadful secrets.

Very soothing.

BBC Breakfast. UK government propaganda, sport, weather, Dan shoehorns a sport reference into an unrelated article, bad joke, Dan mentions his SCD appearance, and then repeat every thirty minutes for the entire morning. Or, if you watch the back end of the week, Charlie makes obscure joke that Naga doesn't understand, Naga belittles Charlie in return, they exchange scowls for the rest of the show.

Still, it could be worse. If you watch Sky News, you get Kay Burley asking all the gallery-fed appropriately political questions then, when given free reign for the sign-off, she has to comment on something really inane such as the interviewee's shoes or their background room.

spidey you forgot the final news story to cheer everyone up, usually about a talking dog or laughing sheep or something

schadenfreude Well, somebody has to...I'm happy to oblige 😉😬

@Unfashionable

In the Night Garden. Iglesias Piggle goes to bed. The end.

You do realise he is just 'Iggle' to his friends? You don't need to be formal.

Friends yes !
But I do like Vera. It’s good to see a ‘mature’ lady in the lead, and it’s just easy watching. Her side kick is easy on the eye too 😉

As Changing Rooms is coming back, I assume the old formula will apply:

Two couples swap houses. At least one person doubts this is all a good idea.
The CR designers ask about the resident family. It will be made clear that they hate yellow, leather and modernism.
A flurry of MDF and quick fixes follows, including some truly awful upcycling and something precious getting broken.
The final result is unveiled, which is a riot of yellow, leather and modernism.
The inhabitants hate it, the designer feigns surprise at their horror/lack of 'taste' and a painter/decorator is booked for the following week.
The couples never speak again.

Death in Paradise is soo formulaic, but I am still working my way through every episode. d